


Roadmap to Ambiguity

by orphan_account



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2013-07-05
Packaged: 2017-12-17 19:30:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/871177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles loosens his moral compass until its figurative north has lost all meaning. He’s a sixteen year-old virgin who has almost died so many times that he invariably forgets one or two when arguing over his mortality with Derek. Derek says Stiles should try to stay alive. Stiles tells him he is trying. "Look," he says, waving at himself in all his long skinny glory. "Breathing. Moving. Alive. Obviously I’m trying." </p><p>Derek says, "Try <em>harder</em>," and Stiles thinks, <em>maybe</em>.</p><p>But that maybe could lead anywhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Roadmap to Ambiguity

**Author's Note:**

> So I was rereading Margaret Atwood's "Happy Endings" (Google it if you haven't read it because it's gorgeous) and also planning a ridiculous Teen Wolf fic, and I had a lot of possibilities for how that fic was going to go down but I clearly couldn't use all of them. The format of "Happy Endings" seemed like an all right way to get all the discarded ideas down on paper. 
> 
> Basically this is just a series of alternate possibilities/realities, put together in one story. Many various apologies to Margaret Atwood and all fans of hers for abusing the intriguing format.

When Stiles is sixteen, his best friend Scott gets bitten by a werewolf. They meet Derek Hale in the woods; his tragic backstory contains enough drama to provide the entire plot for a second-decade soap opera. People start dying. Scott and Stiles point fingers at the only other werewolf they know. Turns out Derek is not the murderer, but it’s definitely not a mountain lion, either. Stiles helps kill Derek's uncle Peter. He uses the girl Stiles has loved forever as a conduit to resurrection. He’s a little bit crazy. Stiles can’t help but be a little relieved that the one murder he’s been involved in didn’t stick. He’s also a little disappointed: He can’t even kill somebody right. 

This is his life. Stiles loves Lydia; Lydia loves Jackson; Jackson turns into a lizard; Lydia saves Jackson. Jackson leaves. Scott loves Allison, who loses her aunt, her mother, and her grandfather in  a few months. Allison still loves Scott. Scott is friends with Isaac. Isaac is chaotic. Allison has a bow and arrow and knows how to use them. Allison has no need for redemption. She is on Scott’s side and is therefore on Isaac’s side. She doesn’t like Derek. No one really likes Derek. Isaac maybe likes Derek. Derek’s little sister, whom he thought was dead, possibly likes him. Boyd and Erica didn’t like him. Erica loved Boyd. Erica is dead. There’s a pack of alphas; they killed her. Boyd is quiet rage. Derek kicks Isaac out. Isaac moves in with Scott. Scott doesn’t spend as much time with Stiles; Stiles tries not to care. Stiles has Lydia’s phone number. Lydia calls Stiles when shit goes down. Stiles loves Lydia. Lydia loves Stiles. Stiles no longer fantasizes about Lydia.

Stiles loosens his moral compass until its figurative north has lost all meaning. He’s a sixteen year-old virgin who has almost died so many times that he invariably forgets one or two when arguing over his mortality with Derek. Derek says Stiles should try to stay alive. Stiles tells him he is trying. "Look," he says, waving at himself in all his long skinny glory. "Breathing. Moving. Alive. Obviously I’m trying." 

Derek says, "Try _harder_ ," and Stiles thinks, _maybe_.

But that maybe could lead anywhere.

 

 **A.** Stiles almost loses his virginity to a girl he’s known since he was a baby. His mom would have approved, because Heather once split a Hostess cupcake with Stiles and Stiles came home all smiles. His mom would have hugged him and given him advice before their first date, told him to be nice and for the love of all that is holy not to order pasta or French onion soup. His dad would have clapped Stiles on the shoulder and the skin around his eyes would probably have softened.

But Heather disappears, and then Mrs. McCall is uncovering a dead body in the morgue and Stiles is looking down at Heather, at Heather dead, at the disgusting unjust overkill of her injuries, and he is blinking back tears.

He doesn’t lose his virginity until he is eighteen, because Heather hadn’t wanted to be a seventeen year-old virgin and Stiles stays one, for her. And it’s not like anyone’s offering. He’s a little consumed with making it through junior year, trying hard to stay alive the way he’d told Derek he would. On his eighteenth birthday, after everyone’s fallen asleep in Stiles’s house—Scott and Isaac head to toe on the couch, Lydia and Allison in his bed, Boyd on the floor by the TV—once they’re all out and Stiles doesn’t think they’ll wake up to the sound of the Jeep, he sneaks out his front door and drives across town to Derek’s apartment.

Derek answers his door and looks at him in silence for a few minutes. He doesn’t move aside. He’s shirtless with sweatpants on. Stiles reaches out one shaking hand and presses it against Derek’s chest, fingers wrapping around his shoulder and fingertips pressing into his soft skin.

“Stiles,” Derek warns.

“I’m eighteen. Give me a good reason why not.”

Of course Derek doesn’t have one. He lets Stiles in and presses him down onto his rumpled bed. He holds Stiles’s wrists over his head and undoes the buttons on his shirt and his jeans with steady flicks of his thumb and index finger. Stiles is hard before Derek’s fully undressed him, but so is Derek. It all works out okay.

He doesn’t think about what his mom would say.

**B.** After he finds out about werewolves, Danny takes Stiles to Jungle. Stiles isn’t sure what finally broke through Danny’s rather aggressive series of “No,” in response to Stiles’s frequent pestering, but whether it’s sympathy or pity or curiosity, he can’t really bring himself to care. He’s going to Jungle. And not on pack duty, either. For _fun_.

Danny texts Stiles the day of, tells him _If you wear your usual ensemble I will not talk the bouncer into letting you in, I swear to god._ Stiles tears his closet apart looking for a shirt that (a) fits and (b) is not plaid. It’s more difficult than it sounds.

He finally settles on a black t-shirt that may or may not have been a joke gift from Scott for his birthday after he spent one too many drunken nights waxing poetic about Derek’s shoulders under his black t-shirt.

Stiles tugs it over his head, puts on a pair of terrifyingly red pants that he bought on a furtive and embarrassing whim a few weeks before, and looks at himself in the mirror. He has no idea whether what he’s wearing is better than what he usually wears. It might be worse. It’s probably worse. He takes a picture, feeling absurd as his thumb presses down on his screen—a selfie, seriously, this is not the days of Myspace.

He sends it to Danny without really looking at it and then deletes it from his phone, following the picture with an _Okay?_ when Danny doesn’t immediately respond. _You won’t leave me outside Jungle?_

Danny responds, _You might leave me. Jesus. You’re never wearing plaid again._

Stiles is torn between feeling very defensive—he _likes_ plaid—and weirdly self-confident. He texts back an ironic _Thx_ and grabs his keys and wallet, fake I.D. safely inside the plastic sleeve, actual driver’s license behind his debit card and a nearly-empty Starbucks gift card. He is totally and completely prepared for Jungle.

They pregame at Lydia's, taking tequila shots until the world hazes pleasantly. The alcohol burns on its way down, but it’s not unpleasant—he once did his best to down a bottle of Jack, the idea of an unpleasant burn has since completely changed meaning. Lydia leans forward between Danny and Stiles, who are moving offbeat to her party playlist, and sighs, “I’m really regretting offering to drive tonight.”

“As you should be.” Stiles brushes against her shoulder good-naturedly. “But I sure as hell appreciate it."

He’s a little sloppy by the time they get to the club, which is good, because almost the instant they’re inside the door some guy’s got his hands on him. And Stiles is not the best dancer, especially when sober, but everything is wrinkled and watery at the moment, and so he moves against the dude without even thinking about it.

The guy is shorter than Stiles, and he’s pressing against Stiles’s ass in a way that’s a little bit hot but also a little too much, and as the songs burst into each other Stiles knows that he needs to move on before this guy starts expecting something. Because, drunk dancing? Sure. Drunk making out? Possibly, but not with this guy, probably. Drunk anything else? Not on 

Stiles slips out of his grasp as a remix of a Gaga song rolls immediately into Ke$ha, and shouts, “It’s been great, I see someone,” waving vaguely in the direction of the bar. The guy makes a face, but he’s drunk enough that he sways into someone else moving beside them on the dance floor, and Stiles stumbles his way through writhing bodies to get to where Danny’s leaning against the bar, talking to the bartender.

“Stiles,” Danny grabs onto his wrist as he reaches them.

“I’m good,” Stiles waves a hand. “Hey, any chance I can get a beer?”

The bartender looks at Danny first, which is a little insulting. Danny nods.

“Corona?” the bartender offers.

“Sam Adams. Summer Ale,” Stiles shouts over the music, and Danny and the bartender share an amused look, but Stiles gets a cold bottle in his hand, so it’s all okay.

He takes a swig as Danny says, “Bryan, this is my buddy Stiles. Stiles, Bryan.” And the way Danny’s eyebrows move says a lot more than the way Bryan shakes Stiles’s hand over the sticky surface of the bar.

“Nice to meet you,” Stiles says. “I should get,” he looks around for a place to get to, because he really does not want to be intruding on Danny’s game. “Elsewhere.”

Danny looks like he’s about to say something, but then he freezes, looking over Stiles’s shoulder. “Um,” he says.

“Yeah?” Stiles raises his eyebrows. He glances over at Bryan the bartender, but Bryan is getting drinks for some customers to Danny's left, and Danny is still staring over Stiles’s shoulder, mouth just barely hanging open.

Stiles turns around, slowly, just in case it’s something actually bad behind him, like a giant lizard or a not-good werewolf.

Derek’s standing there, hand outstretched like he was about to tap Stiles’s shoulder, and he’s looking at him, eyes wide. His gaze drops down Stiles's legs and slowly back up to his face, and he juts his chin up in the awkwardest bro nod Stiles has ever witnessed.

“Hey,” Stiles raises his beer in a sort of wave. “Is something going on? What’re you doing here?”

“Everything’s fine.” Derek’s not looking away at all. “Just, Jesus. I did not expect you—I’ve never seen you here.”

Stiles tries to come up with something witty to say to that when there’s a sudden shove to his back, and he glances over his shoulder as he falls forward against Derek’s chest. Danny’s doing his best to look innocent. He really isn’t doing a good job.

“Sorry, sorry.” Stiles tries to step back, but Derek’s got his hands on his waist. He lifts one and takes Stiles’s beer from his grip, reaches over his shoulder to give it to Danny, and then pushes Stiles through the crowd, hands still on him, until they’re in the middle of the dance floor and he turns Stiles around, grinding against him in a way that Stiles can’t help but react to.

“Okay.” Stiles drops his head back against Derek’s shoulder. “This is good.”

Derek presses his lips to Stiles’s neck and hums against his skin. Stiles takes that as agreement.

He ends up leaving Danny and Lydia at the club.

**C.** Everyone is more than a little dismayed to find out that Derek is banging their English teacher. Scott and Isaac walk into class on a Monday in November and stop in their tracks, covering their noses. Stiles walks straight into Scott’s backpack.

“Dude. What the hell?” Stiles pats his shoulder. “Scott? Isaac? Guys?”

Miss Blake is standing at the blackboard, and she turns to look at the three of them. She’s wearing a lightweight scarf tight around her neck. Scott lowers his hand and draws in a shaky breath. He squeaks and slaps his hand back over his nose.

“I’ve got to,” Isaac stutters. Miss Blake raises her eyebrows.

“Go,” Scott turns and pushes past Stiles so hard Stiles stumbles a little. Isaac follows. Stiles shakes his head at Miss Blake, who’s starting to look a little pink.

“I should,” Stiles gestures at the door, “see what is going on.”

“Sure,” Miss Blake waves him off, “but if you’re all not in your seats in ten minutes, you’ll be staying after for detention.” She still looks flushed, but she’s trying to keep her stare steady. Stiles shrugs and turns on his heel.

Scott and Isaac are leaning against the lockers a few rows down the hall, taking in deep breaths.

“What is going on?” Stiles hisses, stopping in front of the two of them. “Is she, like, secretly a fairy or goblin or something? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Derek.” Scott’s voice is a little strangled. “She smells like Derek.”

“Like,” Stiles trails off. “Like she and Derek were just getting down and dirty and then she came to _teach_ us?” He’s hoping Scott will say no. He’s hoping Isaac will say she smells like Derek was threatening her, as if the after-scent of Derek’s threats are even discernably separate from his general alpha-y scent.

“Exactly like that,” Isaac gets out, and then turns around and presses his forehead against the lockers. Abruptly. With quite a lot of force. Stiles winces.

“She’s going to fail all of us, oh _God_ ,” Scott moans. “This is the worst thing ever.”

Stiles scuffs his foot against the linoleum of the hallway. A week ago he was thinking Derek might want him; a week ago Derek was probably working on getting their English teacher into bed. If Derek even needs to work to get people into his bed. He wouldn’t have needed to do much for Stiles, that’s for sure.

Stiles is glad that Isaac and Scott are still distracted by the horror they’ve just discovered, because otherwise he’s sure they’d be able to tell that he is overwhelmingly ashamed. He can feel the broiling sick feeling of it rising in his throat. He coughs.

“You’re going to need to get a hold of yourselves, because she’s threatening us with detention if we don’t get back in there right now.”

“I don’t know if I can,” Isaac whines. Scott grabs onto his neck and pushes him toward the classroom.

“We have to,” he tells him.

Stiles follows them back to class and, when Miss Blake calls on him to explain the repetition in “The Raven,” he says, “It’s a warning,” which is bullshit, “because the speaker knows that he’s in a bad situation that he probably won’t get out of, and the repetition is like a bell, or alarm, or something, telling him that he should leave if he can.” She’s fucking the alpha; Stiles doesn’t respect her at all. Or, okay, maybe he’s just jealous. He’s a teenager. He’s allowed to feel things. Even if they're irrational. Especially if they're irrational.

Scott and Isaac turn in their seats to stare at him. Miss Blake goes bright red, but manages to say, “I don’t think that’s exactly it. Lydia, would you like to help Stiles out?”

Lydia analyzes the poem perfectly, and shoots Stiles a look. It’s a little triumphant but mostly sympathetic. He breaks his pencil in two halfway through class and ends up with a detention for being disruptive, anyway. He should’ve just skipped.

 

 **D.** Ethan (or Aiden, Stiles can only tell them apart when they’re draped over either Lydia or Danny) slices him open from his collarbone to his bellybutton.  His claws get a little caught in the fabric of Stiles's t-shirt, but they slide almost easily through his skin and a little bit of muscle. Stiles doesn’t really have the time to appreciate this, though, because he’s in a fucking lot of pain the instant Ethan’s (or Aiden’s) claws draw blood. 

“Sorry, Stiles. You’re not the worst,” the alpha says as he backs away, claws disappearing, leaving blood all over his fingers. He scrubs them on Stiles’s jeans before pushing to his feet. Stiles blinks up at him, vision darkening. “You just keep getting in the way.” 

Stiles makes a wet noise. He wanted it to sound like, “Fuck you,” but it’s really more of a gargle by the time it reaches air.

Aiden (or Ethan) turns and runs. Stiles’s breaths are rasps. He hasn’t ever felt like this, with his blood running wet and hot down his sides, the late fall air cold around him, his whole torso a mess of throbbing terrible pain. He’s able to move his hand enough to fumble in his pocket for his phone. The screen is slick with blood when he pulls it out, and the glow is the only bright spot in his line of sight, even though it’s only midafternoon.

He tries to get a text sent to someone before he passes out. He’s not sure if he manages.

Stiles wakes up in the hospital. His dad is sitting in the uncomfortable-looking chair beside Stiles’s uncomfortable-feeling bed. He curses when he sees that Stiles’s eyes are open.

“Thank God,” he breathes, and then reaches out and pats awkwardly against Stiles’s head, because that seems to be the only part of Stiles that is not throbbing, and leans out the doorway, calling to a nurse down the hall.

She comes in and explains to him that he’ll be in bed for a while; it turns out his body did not exactly take kindly to being cut open. Shockingly.

“How’d I get out?” Stiles asks his dad, once the nurse has given him another pump of morphine and left. He can already feel the edges of his consciousness starting to fray.

“Out? Melissa said she found you just outside the hospital. Said you said it was a mountain lion, just before you lost consciousness.”

“Oh.” Stiles thinks he knows what that means. “Yeah, mountain lions. Vicious, with the claws,” he raises his hands in an approximation of claws. The IV tube tugs against the skin of his inner elbow. He lowers his hands and swallows bile. Again and again, until his dad holds out a bedpan and he’s spitting into it, his torso burning with the effort. He’d never asked for this. He passes out again.

The room is dark when he comes to, body still burning all over, the pain sharper this far out from his last dose of painkillers. There are red eyes staring at him from the corner.

“Please be Derek,” Stiles whispers, half to himself, half to the alpha in his hospital room.

The eyes approach. “It’s me,” Derek says, his dark form lowering into the chair his dad had been sitting in earlier. 

“Thank God. I don’t think my body could take another run in with Aiden. Or Ethan. Or fucking Kali.”

“Stiles.” Derek’s voice is low. “Remember how I told you I didn’t want you to die? This is one of those times I wish you had listened to me.”

"Hey,” Stiles mutters, wanting to reach out to touch Derek, just to reassure himself that they’re both there, just for the comfort of it, but resisting, “first, I wasn’t doing anything, I was just walking and he attacked me, and second, I’m not dead, am I?”

“It was such a fucking close call, Stiles.” Derek sounds wrecked. “So fucking close, you don’t even—”

“I sort of know,” Stiles thinks, fuck it, and reaches out to rest his hand—the right, the one attached to the arm that doesn’t have any needles sticking in it—on Derek’s knee. He misses and ends up somewhere in the vicinity of Derek’s thigh. It’s awkward as hell but he leaves his hand there, presses his fingertips down through the fabric of Derek’s jeans. “I was swimming in my own blood for a bit. You found me? How’d you find me?”

“You called Peter. That seemed like a bad sign, and when you didn’t say anything when he picked up, that seemed like a worse one. We found you in the woods—you weren’t that far from my apartment.”

There’s something missing in that explanation, but Stiles is really disastrously exhausted and cannot be assed to get Derek to give him more details. “Thanks,” he says. “And for going to Scott’s mom. That was smart.”

“You don’t need to sound so surprised.” Derek’s tone doesn’t even make it halfway to teasing, even though Stiles can tell he’s trying really damn hard.

They fall into silence. Stiles’s hand is still on Derek’s leg. Derek’s fingers softly press against the back of it, gently moving over his knuckles before settling at the center. Stiles’s pain dulls, the edge of it softening.

“Before you send me off to wolf-induced dreamland,” Stiles murmurs, words coming a little slow, “I need to ask you a question.” Derek makes a noise a little like a grunt. Stiles takes it as permission. “Any chance you want to go on a date with me when I get out of here?”

Derek doesn’t say anything for so long that Stiles is unsure as to whether he’s dreaming or not when he hears Derek say, “Yes.”

But Derek brings Stiles and his dad coffee the next morning, so he thinks he probably wasn’t. Because you bring coffee to the person you’re dating when he’s had his insides torn apart by an alpha werewolf. It’s a thing.

 

 **E.** When Cora and Boyd kill Deucalion, the remaining alphas leave. There’s no fanfare. Danny gets a farewell fuck and a new phone number. Lydia gets a goodbye phone call. Derek gets a smiley face text from an unknown number. Stiles assumes it’s from Kali.

He’s sitting on Derek’s couch when it comes through, trying to decide whether the chances of the sheriff’s department finding Deucalion’s body where it’s buried in the woods are good enough to risk moving the body.

Stiles glances up when Derek’s phone buzzes. “What’s up?” he asks, because Derek’s making his particularly pissed off face as he taps the screen.

He tosses his phone to Stiles. It slips through his fingers, but lands on the couch cushion. Stiles picks it up, attempting nonchalance as Derek snorts in amusement, and opens his messages. 

“Ew.” Stiles presses over the number beside the smiley face. “That’s tacky.”

“Who do you think it is?” Derek drops onto the couch beside him.

“Kali, obviously. Ethan and Aiden both got their last words in. She had to do it her way.” He waves the phone at Derek. Derek reaches out and takes it from him, deleting the message.

“I would have kept her number, at least,” Stiles complains. “I could have sent her obnoxious texts.”

“They’re gone,” Derek says it like he’s not sure he believes it, stretching his legs out and resting his feet on the coffee table in front of them. “We don’t want to piss her off enough to make them come back.”

“But I could have had so much fun, Derek. She left so many openings with her badass evil alpha-ness. Do you know how long I spent thinking of ways to piss her off? I had so many comments planned that I didn’t share because she had her claws in one or another of us at the time.”

Derek’s staring at him. Stiles scrubs at his mouth. “That shows restraint. I’m a little impressed.”

“Right? Thank you. Anyway, you definitely should’ve kept her number.”

Derek shrugs, leaning forward to set his phone on the table. “She probably just stole someone’s phone. You’d be harassing some poor human who got in the way of her fangs.”

“Touché,” Stiles mutters. “So I’m thinking we leave Deucalion where he is. Are you good with that?”

He turns to face Derek on the couch, and Derek is suddenly _on_ him. He’s pushing Stiles back against the armrest and kissing him, lips aggressive and hands running down his sides, over his t-shirt. Stiles represses a shiver, tries to talk against Derek’s insistent mouth. Finally he resorts to pushing against Derek’s shoulders. 

A while ago Stiles had thought that the two of them could work _._ But then he got to know Derek better, realized that Derek was a hell of a lot more than that body and that face, that Derek has issues to the fucking sun. And Derek has become a good friend and this, this act of open mouths and roving hands and, fuck, pushing hips, all of this will ruin that friendship. Because Derek’s issues are not something Stiles has the ability to fix. Because Derek should not be with someone who wants him fixed. Someone who sees their togetherness as contingent upon Derek being _fixable_.

“Derek,” Stiles says, as Derek responds to the press of Stiles’s hands the way he hadn’t Stiles’s squirming. “Seriously, dude, we can’t.”

Derek backs off, standing and jumping back to the other side of the small room in almost a single fluid movement. “I’m—Christ, I thought—”

“No, look,” Stiles stands too, approaches Derek but leaves space between them. “I like—you’re my friend, all right? I don’t want to fuck that up.”

Derek runs his hands through his hair. “Sorry,” he says, and that’s all.

“Don’t make this weird, Derek, it’s fine. We’re fine. Everything’s good.” Stiles holds his hand up, makes a pathetic attempt at the Boy Scouts symbol. He doesn’t remember how many fingers are supposed to go up. Derek’s face eases, though, as he says, “Scout’s honor.”

“Fine,” Derek mumbles, face still a little red. 

But sometimes he gives Stiles this _look_ , when Stiles is gesturing emphatically or trying to force Scott to eat something disgusting or plotting someone’s death, again, and Stiles feels a little sad. Maybe they didn't ruin their friendship, but the way Derek’s looking at him, it’s almost like he wishes they had.

 

 **F.**  Stiles doesn’t let a breath pass between Derek saying, “Try _harder_ ,” and the testing of his sudden realization. 

“Any particular reason you want me to stay alive?”

“I’d rather not have more blood on my hands. Also, your dad will probably figure everything out and get Chris Argent to kill me. And then bring me back so he can arrest me.”

Resurrection jokes are not what they once were. “My death wouldn’t be your fault,” he protests. It’s important that Derek understands this. “I’m the one who does dangerous things.”

“Right, which is why I need you to stop _doing_ those things.” Derek is suddenly in his face, looming in front of him—but not over him, because Stiles has finally closed the few inches between them. Regardless, Derek still takes up a lot of space, and Stiles’s heartbeat quickens. He’s not sure whether he’s turned on or terrified. He thinks probably a bit of both. 

“Would you miss me if I died?” He’s not about to promise to stay out of this. He’s not about to leave Derek with only his sister and Peter for protection. He doesn’t trust either of them. Scott and the rest are only sometimes reliable. But Stiles is in this. Stiles sticks like glue. 

Derek rolls his eyes and steps away, which is exactly the opposite of what Stiles wants. “Why’re you pushing this, Stiles?”

And Stiles thinks, definitely, and takes three long strides to get to Derek. He has only ever kissed Heather and a girl at a party he doesn’t remember very clearly, and he half expects Derek to jump back at werewolf speeds so he falls flat on his face as he leans forward.

But Derek stays. Derek kisses him back, angling his face so their noses don’t press uncomfortably. He opens his mouth and Stiles tastes him; a little stale, the vague impression of mint toothpaste, all the words Derek’s never said a rough wet tumble against his tongue.

 

 

When Stiles is sixteen his best friend gets bitten by a werewolf. They meet Derek Hale in the woods and blame a couple of murders on him. Some shit goes down—their lives change completely. Everyone almost dies a few times. A few people do die, and almost all of them stay dead.

And Derek tells him, “Try _harder_ ,” meaning he wants Stiles to stick around, and Stiles thinks, _Maybe._


End file.
